Walking

Within me,
A million tiny deaths.
I watch from outside
As the massacre rages
With the sinister speed
Of a forest fire-
Turning my Eden
Into a pit of tar.

I wipe the sweat from my brow
And harness my fading strength
To scaffold a smile.
This cloak of
Practised happiness
Does well to contain
My unbridled catastrophe.

Why are you crying?
Are you gay?
So much more
Are suffering worse fates
And they are good people.

As if suffering
Were a competition
As if this
Were not a tragedy
But a punishment

Ultimately,
Deserved.

I smile-
Because it supresses my need
To gag.
I smile-
So that they think these are tears
Of joy.

They repurpose my memoirs
As a cautionary tale.
They had given my story an ending
When it had really only just begun.

Within me,
A million tiny deaths.
But as the deluge descends
Upon my charred paradise,
New shoots emerge.
Within me,
A million tiny births.

They grieve me
As I continue to walk the earth
My smile has worn out
And all they remember
Was the death of me-
A death that only happened
In their superficial minds.

They ceased to see me
When they saw the smoke
They refused to notice

I have turned into a world
Where death and life
Are merely two steps in the journey
Taken one after the other,
Over and over,
Moving me forward
Ever towards peace.

Monster

Every 2AM
I tuck you in with a morsel
Of poison.
Not enough to kill you,
But just enough
To keep me alive.

It puts you in a trance
As if you are somewhere else
Instead of inside me
Wreaking havoc
And ruining my defenses.

See, our story would have been
One for the books,
Except I didn’t even see you coming.
You just showed up
Probably snuck in with the many
Love affairs
I tried to stage with strangers.

Each one a twisted
Once-upon-a-time
That either ended with disaster
Or never even begun.

You sensed the void
That lay in my heart
And found your niche.
You built your tiny castle
With devastation
And rot.

You are here now.
And like many of my lovers
Who did nothing but destroy,
I welcome you with open arms.

I feel you
Spreading in me
Like the seed of a pervert-
Unyielding to shame or protest.
What an enthusiastic
Sadist you are.

I once believed
That sadists made masochists
By mere association.
I know now
That who I am
Doesn’t depend on
Who you’re trying to be.

So sleep,
Little monster,
You are not the death of me.
I am your master.
I am free.

Fulcrum

Perhaps, the saline of our tears
Can also remind us
Of the majesty of the infinite sea.
Perhaps, the weight of our struggles
Can also beckon us
Closer to the bosom of the earth.
Perhaps, the throbbing of our pain
Can also make us feel
The immenseness of our hearts.

That is–
If the tears don’t make our memory hazy,
If the struggles don’t make us weary,
Or if the pain isn’t too enormous
That it causes our heart to break.

What do we do at the fulcrum of this situation-
When the odds are between insurmountable and miraculous?

We hope.

Because hope is the grain of sand that carries the ocean.
It is the blade of grass that rises from the dirt and brings life.
It is the delicate strand that holds a heart together and says it can continue

To love.